Saturday, September 22, 2007

King Ralph Shills For Big Oil

Well that didn't take long. King Ralph went from Premier to Oil Lobbyist in a blink of an eye. Faster than Lougheed and even Getty, his old big oil nemesis.

Klein slams Alberta royalty recommendation


And luckily he did it in Alberta, where weak tea lobbyist legislation was only just passed this spring. So it doesn't affect him. And he is doing it as they say; pro bono. Yep the Big Guy is out defending the Oil lobby and his own political decisions when it comes to selling out Albertans to the Calgary Oil Lobby.

Remember Ken Kowalski's 1994 appointment to chair the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board? It stirred up so much oilpatch opposition that then premier Ralph Klein had to rescind the post he gave the former deputy premier who'd been freshly bounced from cabinet.

Governments in Alberta and elsewhere have traditionally rewarded loyal supporters with plum appointments, often over the hue and cry of opposition parties and the general public.

The Kowalski appointment enraged a sector with considerably more clout: Big Oil. When it said the position required somebody more qualified and less political, Klein was forced to respond.

For a decade Albertans have been ripped off of profits from our resources, shoring up the oil industry with subsidies directly and indirectly, the latter being our penny on the dollar royalty rate for developing the tarsands. The result was the famous neo-con Klein Revolution, for which he annually collected gold medals from the Fraser Institute, which then went on to hire him once he retired as premier.

Should we be surprised he defends his regimes sell out of Alberta, native and Canadian resources? Of course not. He was after all the Premier the Party of Calgary picked. The Party of Calgary has become the bugaboo of Edmonton Sun columnist Neil Waugh, who describes them as the oil aristocracy.


Which, in a sentence, is Big Oil's strategy as the Stelmach Tories attempt to claw back $2 billion a year in energy revenues - largely from Calgary's oilsands aristocrats,who have been awarding themselves multimillion-dollar annual salaries while the owners of the resource get a penny on the dollar payout until the massive capital costs are recovered.


While Rick Bell his counterpart at the Calgary Sun gleefully pulls Big Oils beard in his column. Reminding us from his window view of Petro Plaza,


The outrage from the highest offices in the tallest towers is so loud it is being heard all over the provincial government.

Tory MLAs are being reminded of who runs the show, or who think they run the show, or who did the show until now.

On Tuesday, mere minutes after a report called for the province to hike oil and gas royalties and get a fair share for the resource Albertans own, the oil industry sent the provincial powers a simple one word e-mail.

It read: "Disaster."

Interesting the oilpatch isn't commenting on the fact, on natural gas alone, Albertans are out about $6 billion. That's $6 billion that could have gone to affordable housing, schools, health facilities, other public building projects, a tax break, savings to the Heritage Fund and on and on.


The reality is that the Hunt Report outright says that Albertans have been shortchanged for a decade when it comes to oil royalties.

Royalty review calls for massive jump in oilsands payouts

A panel reviewing the fairness of Alberta's royalty take from oil and gas development said today Albertans are not collecting a fair share and recommended a massive jump in royalties paid by oilsands projects.

The six-member panel headed by Bill Hunter recommended that the government's overall take from oilsands projects be raised to 64%, from 49% today. The panel recommends leaving the 1% pre-payout royalty unchanged, but that the post-pay out royalty be increased to 33%, from 25%.

"Albertans do not receive their fair share from energy development and they have not, in fact, been receiving their fair share for quite some time," Mr. Hunter said in a letter to Alberta Finance Minister Lyle Oberg. "Royalty rates and formulas have not kept pace with changes in the resource base, world energy markets and conditions in other energy rich jurisdictions. Albertans own the resource."



Billions of dollars have been pocketed by the private interests while Ralph declared debt and deficit hysteria, cut jobs, delayed infrastructure, destroyed the health care system by laying off nurses and reducing graduates for their jobs and those of doctors, contracting out services, etc. He told us we were broke, and had to tighten our belts, the debt and deficit crisis was described by King Ralph as the need to not renovate our house, but to demolish and rebuild.


One of his would be heir apparent's is our current provincial treasurer Lyle Oberg, a true believer, who says dark days are upon us. Of course he too opposes asking for what belongs to the people, a just royalty for our resources.

In that wonderfully twisted world of social conservatism the politics of giving unto Caesar has become the economics of giving unto Big Oil.
The logic goes like this, if it weren't for big oil the PC party would be nothing, so it does it all it can for Big Oil. Now like all One Party States this logic is then transformed into what is good for Big Oil is good for Alberta.

The irony is that this royalty scam was not even created by Klein. Rather it was created after the collapse of the global oil market in 1984 by then Petro Premier Don Getty. Don being the oil boys insider for the moment, Klein was able to scape goat him for all of Alberta's economic problems which were a result of the market melt down, the recession of the eighties.
So when the momentary debt and deficit crunch came world wide, Klein was ready to step in. Rather than end the tax and royalty holiday for Big Oil, he continued it and turned on the people of Alberta to pay for the deficit.

Deficits are not permanent, they are a year by year accounting phenomena. A debt on the other hand exists and transfers from year to year. A debt is what you owe someone else. You cannot have a debt to yourself. But in the wonderful Wizard of Oz Topsy turvy world of neo-con logic, government financed and owned infrastructure was seen as a business cost rather than as an asset.


The wailing and gnashing of teeth from the industry lobbyists, including Klein, and those in the investment business is predictable if somewhat disingenuous. After all this is Alberta, not Saskatchewan or Manitoba. This is a Tory run one party state at the beck and call of the Petroleum Club in Calgary. And the panel doing the review well it was stacked with capitalists.

The report was written by a six-member, blue-ribbon panel named by the government. The members included two economics professors, a chief economist for an Calgary-based energy research firm, a businessman, a forestry executive and a former senior executive with an oil company.

If anything, the panel was seen as too pro-business. In fact, the appointment of Sam Spanglet to the panel caused a stir back in February when news broke that the former oil executive still had "a couple of million" dollars worth of stock options with Shell Canada.

As if to bolster the opposition's accusation, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers was reportedly pleased with the panel's members and their credibility.

It seemed just about everyone was predicting the panel would deliver an industry-friendly conclusion.


One of the funniest comments comes from an one of those dime a dozen investment newsletters;
"Do they really wish to kill this golden goose with one fell swing of the tax axe?" said economist Dennis Gartman, editor of the Gartman Letter, an influential investment newsletter based in Virginia, who was "shedding tears" about Alberta going "socialist" and wondering whether the provincial government has "gone mad."


Socialist, well gee where has he been. Let's see Alberta is dominated by one party, a party that has been in power so long it naturally thinks it is the government. One that has subsidized the oil industry at the cost of the owners fair share. That spells socialism to me....well state capitalism actually, but for the rabid right they are the same. As ex- King Ralph pointed out;

"It was a regime created by industry and government. Those kinds of rules don't change on a whim. Companies are nervous."


And then there are those who, like our Treasurer Lyle Oberg, are doom and gloom proponents who claim that the sky is falling and once again are declaring impending debt and deficits. The reality is that it was the royalty holiday that Getty gave the industry that led to the deficit crisis of 93-95 that gave Klein an excuse to implement the Fraser Institutes neo-con revolution in Alberta.


On page 23, for example, the report points out "The panel was constantly told by companies and by energy industry trade groups that Alberta ranked very high in Government Take." However, those companies and groups were citing from an outdated 1997 report by an international expert. The review panel commissioned the same international expert who compiled new data and concluded "the very opposite is now unequivocally true."


In this case its also the oil and gas industries who are claiming a crisis in their industry and again have their hands out asking for more state subsidies.


Yet, because of public expectations, it's unlikely the panel will recommend what's needed at this time: a reduction in royalties to salvage what's left of this vital part of the sector. Indeed, there are indications the slump is not just another cycle, but a structural change that will require new thinking from everyone -- industry, government and labour -- to reduce costs so it can compete with the cheap imports of liquefied natural gas invading the U.S. market, once dominated by Alberta producers.


Oh you didn't know there was a slump in the oil and gas business? It didn't appear that there was according to the markets this week.

Oil prices hit record highs

Oil dips, but gas prices set to rise

Taking Cues From Fed, Speculators Bid Up Oil

More oil firms hike fuel prices

Crude oil sails over $80 buoyed by bullish mkt

Oil near new high amid tight supplies


Well there is. It's called peak oil and the industry is panicking over its potential impact. Alberta's conventional oil and gas reserves will peak in 2020 and begin to decline, as will provincial revenues. And so the oil business in Alberta is focused on developing the tarsands output, regardless of costs to the public or the environment, by then.

A litany of Canadian investment banks also pulled no punches in their assessment of the proposals in the Our Fair Share report.

FirstEnergy Capital Corp. warned the proposed measures, in a report entitled "Albertastan? Misguided Intentions and the Fair Share Option," would be "negative if adopted, and will slow down the development of oilsands."

Well frankly that's a good thing since the boom is artificial and has caused untold problems in Alberta. We need a planned economy from our 'socialist' government, since the oil sands development has gotten out of control.

Since Prince Eddies government refuses to adopt such a plan, then if the royalty regime forces a slow down all the better. Alberta is an overheated economy. One that is sure to bust big, because no boom is sustainable. And woe betide Albertans if that happens. The boom of the seventies and early eighties was followed by a quarter century recession in the province. One that was used as an excuse to rack up surpluses at the expense of public services and infrastructure expenditures.


Stelmach says he'd stand up to big oil


Be still my beating heart.
Anyone who thinks Farmer Ed is going to accept this report in whole, has missed the fact he has not accepted the recommendations of any public reports that he called for upon his appointment as Alberta's CEO. He has adopted the minimum to make him look good sometimes that has meant rejecting the public reports and making a big deal out of the fact he asked for them.

We need only remember the Alberta Housing Report, which called for rent controls. He rejected this outright. He has rejected the public commission calling for controlled growth and a slow down in oil sands development as well.

A columnist at the U of C student newspaper the Gauntlet sums it up well.



Furthermore, even if the provincial government does go for the whole 20 per cent increase, Alberta’s royalty rates will still be some of the lowest in the world. And don’t try to tell me that all the oil companies will uproot and flee the country the second people start talking about increasing royalties. As a fellow editor commented to me recently, “They’re in the oil business. They’ll go where the oil is.” The oil companies have invested too much money and stand to make far too much money for them to vanish in a cloud of carbon monoxide like the conservatives are arguing.

Anybody who has studied the provincial Conservatives in even the shallowest capacity knows that Premier Ed “Steady Eddy” Stelmach will likely not raise royalties at all come Oct. when he makes the decision. If royalties are increased, it will likely be by just enough for Stelmach to seem like a populist without putting even the slightest dent in Big Oil’s beer budget. This isn’t necessarily is bad thing; the quality of life in Alberta will continue to improve at the same rate it always has if nothing is done. There’s no immediate negative consequence in deferring to the oil companies on this one, and that’s likely why nothing will be done: nobody wants to rock the boat. However, it’s worth considering the possibilities of even a slight increase.


And those who are in the known when it comes to economics agree. Big Oil will stomp their feet and wail but all is for naught. They will go where the oil is and if they don't well there are the Chinese, and Japanese, and....

Alberta premier walks into lion‘s den with business leaders over royalty review

Many of the business leaders attending the event said whether Stelmach chooses in the coming weeks to adopt the report‘s recommendations or not will be his most important decision, not just for now but for generations to come.

“My view is that the province should just out of hand reject this report because ... the decisions that they made are totally out of touch with the economy and what‘s happening around the world right now,‘‘ said Doug Mitchell, co-chairman of the forum.

“I don‘t see any credibility whatsoever in the report.‘‘

But one energy specialist said regardless of what Stelmach decides, the oilsands are too rich and vast for industry to ignore.

Ken Moors, a managing partner of Risk Management Associates in Pittsburgh, Pa., said he has brokered royalty deals around the globe and he believes Stelmach has been smart to make this dispute a public one.

“This is a rare opportunity for a democracy to do things in the open,‘‘ he said.

“But you must remember that every other time these royalty situations have been advanced in other countries, they‘ve been advanced in a market in which the expectation was that supply was going down. This is the only example I‘ve ever seen where these are being introduced in a market where the supply is bound to go up.‘‘

He said the province will still be very competitive with other countries.

"It is not going to take place . . . this is the only major supply side push left in the international oil market, so people either invest here or they see their profit margins dwindling in the future -- there is no other alternative," he said.


That is rich, There Is No Alternative. TINA. The famous neo-con excuse for selling off government services to embrace the Market. And now the shoe is on the other foot for Big Oil. TINA. LOL.

Amongst the sturm and drang of capitalist outrage in columns in the National and Financial Post comes a whiff of wisdom if not prudent observation.

Diane Francis, Financial Post

Published: Saturday, September 22, 2007

It's important to note that what is being discussed is not taxation but the royalty paid to Albertans who own the lion's share of subsurface mineral rights in the province. And they are not getting as much revenue from their resources as competing jurisdictions are, according to the report. Industry spokesmen dispute the numbers and say Alberta's take is already high enough, and any higher will drive away investment.

For instance, conventional oil and gas royalties and taxes in the U.S. average 67% while they are 50% in Alberta, said the report.

Non-conventional oil production -- offshore and heavy oil -- is another interesting story. Heavy oil royalties in Cold Lake are 60% compared with Nor-way's offshore royalties of 76%, California's heavy-oil royalties (and taxes) of 67.5% and Venezuela's 72%.

To me, both the markets and media have been hysterical about nothing. Stelmach is not some fiscal confiscator. He's the CEO of the most valuable jurisdiction in the Western hemisphere and his review of royalties is simply prudent business practice.

Just like Danny Williams is doing in Newfoundland except in order to get his folks the best deal he didn't sell the goose, just a part of the golden egg. Funny thing the same folks whining over the Alberta Royalty report said this about Danny's provincial version of Petro-Can;

Paul Barnes, the St. John's-based spokesman for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said state equity stakes are common throughout the world beyond North America and Europe. He said his members are prepared to negotiate exact figures for specific deals. "It's not overly concerning to our members that equity participation is on the table here because we experience it on worldwide basis."
Gee you don't hear that from the CAPP when it comes to Alberta's Royalty Revue.

"At first blush," gulped Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers spokesman Greg "Sky is Falling" Stringham, "this is far worse than anticipated."


So what is all the fuss about, why the chicken little exercise in outrage? What does this dastardly commie socialist pinko report say. Well it is damning of years of incompetence by an entrenched and debouched Tory party of Calgary Oil insiders.

A tired old party that instead of collecting what is owed to Albertans by Big Oil for the past decade, forget just the last few years of booming oil prices, gave them a royalty holiday paid for by Albertans. We paid in increased user fees, privatization, contracting out, wage freezes in the public sector, caps on AISH payments and claw backs,kicking the poor off welfare, selling off the ALCB at fire sale prices, systemic mistreatment of seniors in seniors homes, the Health Care premium which is a tax grab, failure to invest in infrastructure, firing of nurses and doctors, capping of nursing and doctor graduates in Alberta universities, not only closing but blowing up hospitals, lack of vocational and technical education that has led to current labour shortages, etc. etc.

The government makes more money off gambling then it does off either royalties or taxes on conventional oil and gas and the tarsands.

And no matter what Stelmach does, he cannot make up for being part of a government that at best was asleep at the wheel for two decades, at worst was implementing harsh cuts and reconstructing the state according to a neo-con agenda that was never for the benefit of the people of Alberta but to please the Fraser Institute and its pals.

Stelmach will never, ever, ask for the billions Big Oil owes the people of Alberta who had to pay for Ralph Klein's renovation of the province for their and the Fraser Institutes benefit.


The Conservative regime has forgotten that natural resources belong to Albertans and not developers, says the report from the royalty review panel appointed by the same government.

And the Alberta Energy ministry is bracing for another unsparing probe next month of how it handles royalties from Auditor General Fred Dunn.

His office has chided the government in past years for being unable to effectively track what companies owe in royalties, and suggested the problem was costing hundreds of millions of dollars in royalty losses.

But the royalty review panel took the criticisms much further, recommending a new oversight body and far better reporting to the public.

"During our review we discovered an absence of accountability from the government to Albertans, the owners of resources," panel chairman Bill Hunter told reporters this week. "We encountered significant difficulty in accessing information -- to have even simple questions answered."

"How the administration or public leaders make informed decisions in this vital arena is an open question," says the review report, made public Tuesday.

"In the case of Alberta's multibillion-dollar energy reserves, seen as an enterprise, the onus on government to inform the public should actually be orders of magnitude higher," the report said. "Stated politely, this standard of disclosure is not presently being met.

"The panel is of the opinion that the government has not built up sufficient expertise and capacity to administer and manage this complexity."

It also identified a specific problem of missing money, or "what preliminarily seems like a pattern of material deferral of payments that is not in the interests of Albertans."

Once again the real Alberta Deficit is revealed, the democratic deficit. So the next time some Alberta Conservative MLA or MP, they are after all joined at the hip, talks about accountability, transparency, honest government, usually pointing fingers at Liberals in Ottawa, just ask them if they know where the missing billions from Big Oil are squirreled away.


Read it for yourself.

Royalty Review Panel final report

SEE:

Transparency Alberta Style

Closing The Barn Door




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Friday, September 21, 2007

Parity


The loonie made parity with the U.S. dollar today.

Then it slipped to 99.9 which gave it parity with the average cost per litre for gas in Edmonton.







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SEE:

Gas Gouging


If It Ain't Broke



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Thursday, September 20, 2007

40 Years Later; The Society of the Spectacle

The foundational work of post Marxism; Society of the Spectacle, resulted from the creation of the Situationist Internationale

Released during the Summer of Love, it would go on to inspire the revolts of 1968.
Which appropriately was the year of the pig.

This work influenced the broad left in France and Europe including the post structuralists, and post modernists, who watered it down and created a specter of itself for their own academic pursuits.

It is forty years old and still caustically accurate as a critique of post- modernist capitalism.

DebordSpectacle.com

The Society of the Spectacle
by Guy Debord
Originally published in 1967
The revolutionary thinker, Guy Debord was the leading figure of the French intellectual group who called themselves The Situationist International. His text, The Society of the Spectacle written in 1967 is one of the greatest theoretical examinations of our socio-cultural condition, describing in pinpoint accuracy, the dreadful corporate globalization craze currently sweeping the planet. His work was instrumental in sparking the student uprisings in Europe in the late sixties. In 1989 he published his "Commentaries on the Society of the Spectacle" Both texts are chillingly accurate descriptions of the world of simulation and lies that mankind has transformed his life into. In December of 1994, at the age of 62, Debord killed himself.




SEE:

Baudrillard RIP

Same Old Olympics

Their Satanic Majesties Request

Black and Redmonton

The Fifth International

Kabbalistic Kommunism

Palm Sunday April Fools Day

Paul Goodman

For a Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing

New Age Libertarian Manifesto

The Right To Be Greedy

May 68 Redux

Tout va Bien

After Montreal A View From the Past


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Lebanon; Birds of a Feather

The Right Wing likes to refer to Hezbollah as Islamofascists. Well it appears that they have gotten support from real fascists as well, the traditional Christian Falangists in Lebanon. Their alliance was thrown together by last years war. This is a lengthy but detailed study of the forces at play in post war Lebanon. And considering the recent events in Lebanon, it is well worth reading.

Rallying Around the Renegade

Back in the fall of 2006, student elections at the American University of Beirut produced an unexpected aesthetic: female campaigners for the predominantly Christian Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) of the ex-general Michel Aoun sporting button-sized portraits of bearded Hizballah leader Hasan Nasrallah on their stylish attire. “Hizballah stands for the unity and independence of Lebanon, just as we do,” went the party line, as reiterated by Laure, an activist business student clad in the movement’s trademark orange. “And imagine, the Shi‘a and us,” she mused, off-script and with a glance at her co-campaigners, covered head to toe in the black gowns of the staunchly Islamist party, but spiced up with bright orange ribbons for the occasion. “How many we will be.”

Just how many became clear soon enough, when Aoun joined Hizballah’s attempt to bring down the government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora through public pressure later that year. While actual numbers are notoriously hard to come by,the two main rallies held on December 1 and 10 clearly rivaled the demonstration that brought about the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon 18 months before. Followers of Aoun, who stand out in their blazing orange gear, accounted for an apparent third of the masses. Once again, predictions that Aoun’s alliance with the “Party of God” would dispel his support in the Christian community were proven wrong.

Throughout his political career, Michel Aoun’s bold maneuvering, boisterous, often ranting discourse and utter disregard for the complex rules and false niceties of the Lebanese political scene have made him one of the most divisive figures therein. To his admirers, he is the strong leader who can rise above the fray of perennial internecine conflict, clear out a divided and despised political class bent on the pursuit of factional and personal interest, and achieve longed-for, but ever elusive national unity. Likewise, Aoun has earned himself the intense loathing (even by Lebanese standards) of the members of exactly this political class (and their followers). Rather than a champion of secularist nationalism, they consider Aoun to be an irresponsible rabble rouser who threatens to upset the delicate balance of sectarian power sharing, and his calls for reform and a shakeup of public institutions to be thinly veiled Bonapartism.

Often dismissed as sheer populism, the FPM’s call for imposing transparency and stamping out corruption and clientelism -- however realistic an objective it may or may not be -- thus threatens to disrupt the very system on which the power structure is built. With trademark exaggeration, Michel Aoun vowed to “confront political feudalism” upon his return from France in May 2005. While clearly a swipe at the likes of Walid Jumblatt (who happens to be the heir of a “real” feudal line), Saad al-Hariri and Amin Gemayel, such pronouncements cannot have been pleasing to any of the politicians who prefer the rules of the games as they are. As Gambill puts it: “FPM control of a major ministry is a red line for the [March 14] coalition mainly because Aoun would have absolutely nothing to lose by acting on his pledges to clean up government, even if his motives are completely self-serving.”

While potentially endangering vested interests, a program emphasizing transparency and meritocracy is likely to appeal to the educated middle classes forming the backbone of the FPM, whose life chances are hampered by systemic clientelism and sectarian red tape that often extends into the private sector. Barred from many attractive jobs for lack of connections, unable to initiate meaningful economic activity of their own for lack of capital and, again, lack of opportunities in an environment where many market segments are controlled by fat cats who easily squeeze out new competitors, they stand to gain from any change. Accordingly, the economic outlook of the FPM shows conservative or even neo-liberal leanings, with a high premium on encouraging free competition, world market integration and downsizing a state bureaucracy bloated by clientelism.

Still, and despite the secularist rhetoric wielded by Aoun and his lieutenants, one of the most important cards for the FPM among its predominantly Christian following appears to be the sense of being once again excluded in the post-civil war political order -- only this time, and worse, not by the Syrians, who were, after all, outsiders and occupiers. This time the Aounists feel marginalized by other Lebanese and, still worse, by nobody less than their age-old nemesis, the Sunnis, manifest in the overbearing presence of the Hariri family and its political machinery, the Future Movement. Secularism as professed by the Aounists thus shows a tendency to turn into a sectarian discourse directed mainly against a perceived Sunni takeover of state institutions, and prone to resurrect the eternal Christian fear of being “drowned” in a sea of more than 250 million Muslim Arabs surrounding Lebanon, the only country in the region to guarantee them full legal equality.

From the perspective of Christians close to Aoun, however, talking to the Americans was pointless, for the Sunni ascendancy was seen as not at all accidental, but rather part of a strategic realignment that puts Sunni Arab regimes, and in particular Saudi Arabia, at the center of a pro-US alliance against purported radicals. “In the fall of 2005, Washington was facing a stark choice of what to support in Lebanon,” wrote Jean Aziz, who has since become the director of Orange TV. “It could choose either a pluralist, consensual system that may have set an example for the dialogue rather than the clash of civilizations, or a Sunni Muslim system with American leanings and pliant to American interests, a model for American presence in the region.”

But then why turn to Hizballah, another party with a clearly Muslim character, and with a political agenda liable to embroil Lebanon deeper and further in regional struggles, something Lebanese Christians have always been loath to do? For Aoun’s detractors, the answer is simple and straightforward: Both Shi‘a and Christians are tiny minorities in a region dominated by Sunnis. In a system where sectarian considerations trump everything else, their alliance against a powerful Sunni-dominated regime now backed by Lebanon’s Sunni neighbors appears almost natural. With only 30-40 percent of the population, and with non-Arab Iran as its main sponsor, Lebanon’s Shi‘a have no hope of ever dominating the system, unlike the Sunnis, who draw economic and demographic strength from neighboring countries such as Egypt, Syria, Jordan or Saudi Arabia, all liable to be controlled by Islamists in the not too distant future. Additionally, Hizballah, with its disciplined fighting units, appears less scary in comparison to Sunni extremists such as Fatah al-Islam, who have been battling the Lebanese army for three months in the refugee camp of Nahr al-Barid, after allegedly being under the protection of the Hariri family -- developments dwelt upon by media sympathetic to the FPM.


See:

Failure of a Measured Response

Measured Response

Fraser Institute On Lebanon

Unemployment Breeds Terrorism

Israel Lies Cost Lebanese Lives

Economic War

The Economics of War In Lebanon

Six Week War for Nothing

Lets Get Our Facts Straight

Hezbollah Are Not Terrorists

Israel War Crimes

We Are Hezbolah

Thank The New Canadian Government

Canada Forces Palestinans Into Poverty

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Sounds Familiar

Gee this sounds familiar.....

a preliminary Iraqi report on the shooting involving a US diplomatic motorcade claims Blackwater security guards had not been ambushed, as the company reported, but instead fired at a car when it did not heed a policeman's call to stop, killing a couple and their infant.


Yep reminds me of other deaths in Iraq like that of the Italian Secret Agent,
where innocents are shot in their cars for failing to obey a stop sign.

Wonder if those guys were Blackwater as well. After all it's hard to tell the players without a program.

And with the Rumsfeld Doctrine of integrating private mercenaries and contracted out support services with the regular Armed forces it is even harder to tell.

But the vision that Rumsfeld sort of laid out that day would become known as the Rumsfeld Doctrine, where you use high technology, small footprint forces and an increased and accelerated use of private contractors in fighting the wars.


And the Iraq report on gung ho merc's from Blackwater goes on....

The report, prepared by the interior and defence ministries, was presented to the Iraqi cabinet and, though unverified, seemed to contradict an account offered by Blackwater that the guards were responding to gunfire by militants.

The report said Blackwater helicopters had been involved and 20 Iraqis were killed — a far higher number than had been reported before.

"There was not shooting against the convoy," the Iraqi Government's spokesman, Ali Dabbagh, said. "There was no fire from anyone in the square."

Shoot first ask questions later seems to be Blackwater's motto, which is what got them killed in Fallujah in the first place and set off the American revenge attack on that city.


SEE:

Moral Turpitude Is Spelled Blackwater

Bad News For Bush

U.S. Supplies Iraqi Insurgents With Weapons

Surge Blackout

IRAQ- THIS WAR IS ABOUT PRIVATIZATION


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a href="http://tagcentral.net/?tag=President" bush="" rel="tag">President Bush,
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Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Clean Air Clean Water No Wildlife

The Conservatives Made In Canada environment plan is big on clean air and clean water. Its not a plan about the environment as much as plan to reduce smog in Eastern Canada. Which really is an issue for the Departments of health, infrastructure, and industry not really the purview of Environment Canada.

Environment Minister John Baird says he and David Suzuki are on the same page when it comes to addressing the effects of environmental degradation on public health.

Baird met with Canada's best-known environmentalist for 40 minutes on Tuesday to discuss a report on linking the environment and health.

The David Suzuki Foundation presented the document at the annual meeting of the Canadian Public Health Association, calling for governments to pay closer attention to how air and water contaminants give rise to disease.



But now we find out it's at the expense of the real environment; wildlife and endangered species and endangered spaces.

The Canadian Press

Toronto -- - Serious budget problems at Environment Canada are threatening wildlife programs and services within the federal department, CBC's The National reported last night .

Money for some programs has been frozen and budgets for others have been slashed to nothing, the network reported.

The Canadian Wildlife Service has had its service budget frozen for the rest of the fiscal year, meaning all its scientific field and survey work has been halted. Sources tell the CBC the Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Network, which observes changes in ecosystems, has lost 80 per cent of its budget.

The Migratory Bird Program, which monitors the health of bird populations, has seen its budget cut by 50 per cent. The budget for the National Wildlife Areas, a program that protects habitats for wildlife and birds, has been slashed from $1.9 million to zero.

CBC said that despite the spending cuts, the environment ministry would spend C$60,000 ($59,000) on a consultant to study why employee morale was so bad.

Sierra Club slams Environment Canada budget cuts
Wonder what Dr. Suzuki has to say about being used as prop to cover up for cuts to Environment Canada.

Especially since Hinterland Who's Who, is as popular as his TV program the Nature of Things.

Of most concern to conservationists among a handful of cuts is that the Canadian Wildlife Service has had its service budget frozen for the rest of the fiscal year, meaning all its scientific field and survey work has been halted. The national wildlife agency is directly responsible for studying and protecting wildlife in Canada and puts out the Hinterland Who's Who public service ads.
I guess they blew the budget on the Bear Sanctuary in B.C. a Liberal promise the Tories made their own to promote their green make over this spring.

And these cuts were predicted over a year ago as I reported then;

Tories Put Endangered Species at Risk

Verbena for Ambrose

Tories Green Petro Plan




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Telus About UFO's



Edmonton hosted a major UFO conference this weekend at the Telus Conference Centre at the U of A. Apparently this was not a big deal for the blogosphere or for the MSM other than local media. Other things got in the way. However it is important since...

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the crash landing in Roswell, New Mexico, where some believe the U.S. military covered up evidence of an alien craft. And this weekend, Edmonton's TELUS World of Science, a respected museum complex, hosted a two-day UFO conference exploring the possibility of intelligent alien life.

Stanton Friedman, a nuclear physicist who maintains that some UFOs are alien spacecraft, told nearly 200 delegates during the conference's opening lecture Friday night at the Telus World of Science in Edmonton that journalists and scientists are ignorant of the evidence supporting the fact that interstellar travellers have visited.

Friedman, who believes government covered up an alleged discovery of alien wreckage and bodies in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947, said that many eyewitnesses of UFOs are silenced by a "laughter curtain" and fear ridicule if they report their sightings.

German scientist Von Braun was at Roswell during UFO crash

Before Roswell the first UFO sighting in he United States that included alien bodies occurred in Nebraska in 1884.

There is also the case in 1952 of an apparent extraterrestrial visitor to Flatwoods, W. V.

Then there is the video documented mass sightings that occurred in
Arizona in 1997.

Apparently Bill Richardson Democratic candidate for U.S. President has some insider knowledge about UFO's. After all his state hosts many kinds of aliens as well as those at Roswell. But it's a question that is not likely to make the YouTube debates, unfortunately.

Paradigm Research Group, which held a news conference at the National Press Club yesterday to demand that presidential candidates support a "truth amnesty" to end the "government-imposed truth embargo on the facts confirming an extraterrestrial presence."

The likeliest beneficiary: New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who wrote a foreword to the "Roswell Dig Diaries," a UFO book. "As a 25-year-old he was an employee of a secret CIA extraterrestrial liaison program," Webre explained. "He has inside knowledge."
Dan Ackroyd was not at the Telus Conference, too bad, that would have sure generated more publicity for this important event.

Aykroyd is the "Hollywood consultant" for Mufon (it stands for Mutual UFO Network), which seems to involve keeping abreast of developments in the UFO-sighting world and promoting the organisation. "Basically, [Mufon are] scientists from all kinds of disciplines that have formed this group to analyse what is real and what is a hoax. Now you could say every one of them is a fake - that footage of 200 whirling white dots in the sky, or the Phoenix Lights [a series of lights seen over Phoenix, Arizona, in 1997] - which 17,000 people saw - the Tinley Park sightings in Illinois, where whole suburbs saw these triangles and wedges go over at three miles an hour. Is it a mass hallucination? If so, why is it appearing on digital cameras and film? They're coming and going like taxis."
Akroyd is like many of us an amateur UFO buff and Canadian.And Canada has its fair share of UFO sightings.

Canadian UFO Sighting Reports - January - August 2007


Still beside amateurs there are a lot of credentialed scientists who take the study of UFO's seriously. And we have to remember that those who have actually experienced space flight have also seen UFO's.

A statement on a new documentary on the Apollo 11 Moon missions has broken a long silence by United States Astronauts on the reporting of UFOs. The documentary quotes Buzz Aldrin as stating without reservation that the Astronauts saw a UFO that paced them for a time during their journey to the Moon.

This information was kept secret by NASA for all of these years. This is an extremely important revelation for UFO believers, and hopefully a nudge for non-believers. The documentary shows us a short piece of UFO footage taken from "later" NASA missions, but says that the object is similar to what the three Astronauts of Apollo 11 saw.

Mr. Aldrin described the UFO as a cylinder, while Armstrong said it was "really two rings" Two connected rings". Collins also said it appeared to be a hollow, tumbling cylinder. He added, "It was a hollow cylinder. But then you could change the focus on the sextant and it would be replaced by this open-book shape. It was really weird."

Even more strange was the experience of Mr. Aldrin and Mr. Armstrong, after they reached the Moon.

According to an Associated Press story of July 20, 1969 published in the San Bernardino Sun-Telegram, the astronauts sighted eerie lights inside a crater near the point on the Moon where their lunar lander was due to touch down the next day.

In December 1965, Gemini astronauts James Lovell and Frank Borman also saw a UFO during their second orbit of their record-breaking 14 day flight. Borman reported that he saw an unidentified spacecraft some distance from their capsule. Gemini Control, at Cape Kennedy told him that he was seeing the final stage of their own Titan booster rocket. Borman confirmed that he could see the booster rocket all right, but that he could also see something completely different.

Some Soviet sightings have come from very credible sources, such as Cosmonaut Victor Afanasyev, who in 1979 (while on his way to the Soviet Solyut 6 space station) claimed he saw a UFO turn toward his craft and begin tailing it through space. He gave the following report “It followed us during half of our orbit. We observed it on the light side, and when we entered the shadow side, it disappeared completely. It was an engineering structure, made from some type of metal, approximately 40 meters long with inner hulls. The object was narrow......and inside there were openings. Some places had projections like small wings. The object stayed very close to us. We photographed it, and our photos showed it to be 23 to 28 meters away”. When the cosmonaut returned to earth he was debriefed and told never to reveal what he knew, and had his cameras and film confiscated.




Of course there is always the usual explanation for UFO's;


‘UFO’ was a NASA experiment


But weather balloons don't explain the Phoenix Lights or the Tinley Park Wedges nor were they floating past Apollo 11.

Nor does it explain what two experienced pilots saw over Guernsey last April or what occurred over New Zealand that same month.

The Telus Conference was at least balanced between true believers and skeptics unlike the UFO conference last month in California.

"UFOs are as probable as the reality of Atlantis, which is slightly less probable than Bigfoot being real," said John Roesch, 44.

Roesch, a director of corporate planning for the City of Edmonton, is finishing a master's degree in engineering management.

The self-described skeptic attended the conference to learn more about astrophysics.

Wait a minute Atlantis is probable. And so are Giganticus, in North America. Remember Sherlock Holmes first law; "When you have ruled out the impossible, whatever remains ,no matter how improbable, is the truth."

So what is a UFO? Well it is just that. An Unidentified Flying Object. As in not-identified. I agree with this guy;

UFO is an acronym for Unidentified Flying Object. It should seem simple enough, but as we know, it’s far from simple. Something so simple has been so corroded by assumptions that we need to make sure we’re all on the same page before entering a discussion about UFOs. When I say “UFO” I mean just that: unidentified somethings. When some of you say UFO you may mean: aliens from outer space, lunatics, crazy people who see things that aren’t there, military-industrial objects, natural phenomena, wishful thinking, people who drink too much and see things, people who take drugs and see things, liars, or hoaxes.
And even though this guy has pictures he still doesn't jump to conclusions as to what they are except that they are UFO's.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Or, is it from another world …

Whether or not the “disk-shape” and “slender rectangular” objects in Dave Dunford’s photos are UFOs, they sure are strange.

“I can’t say they’re being piloted by little green men, but they’re UFOs,” said Dunford of Cadillac. “I saw what I saw — they’re unidentified, they’re flying and they’re objects.”



So when they do get identified that is a good thing too, because it still is not an explanation for all UFO sightings, just a specific one. Like that NASA weather balloon explanation or this one;

UFO mystery could be down to a toy!

Following last week's story about strange lights flying around the town, we had dozens of calls and emails from residents who have spotted more unexplained objects in the nightsky.

Air traffic control officials may be at a loss to explain what has been flying around, but many callers believe they know the answer - Chinese lanterns!

Although many still dispute this and claim they are UFOs, some residents called in to say they have been releasing the lanterns into the sky over the past few weekends.

The lights can go up to a great height very quickly.

"We set them off for the kids - they love them," said Karen Redford from Langdale Close, Brownsover.

"I am sure they are the lights that people have been reporting. It seems to have caused quite a stir!"



Of course as I have pointed out here, a lot of UFO sightings, especially those in the U.S. desert states, occur near conveniently located U.S. military bases like Roswell which undertake super secret black ops, which they would rather dismiss as UFO's then what they are really building and testing.

But in doing so they used the UFO phenomena as a propaganda weapon for the Cold War, much like they did the idea of an internal Communist threat to the U.S. Government. And in some minds the two were equated. This was especially true of Hollywood of the Fifties.



The Robertson Panel: the Cia Considers UFO's

1918-1939 is sometimes called “the golden age of aviation” because of the much technological advancement made in aircraft. With World War II came better, faster airplanes and more experienced pilots. By the time the war was over, air travel was becoming firmly established across the world. The skies became the highways of the future. People started looking up in curiosity. What they saw in the skies was sometimes mundane, but sometimes astonishing. The UFO age had begun.

The early 1950s saw a surge of civilian UFO reports. So serious had the problem become, that normal intelligence duties in the CIA were being seriously impacted. Authorities were worried that if the Soviet Union or another adversary attempted to invade the US, the lines would be clogged and the government would be unable to act, so serious had UFO hysteria become. Clearly, something had to be done.

The CIA responded by forming a committee to investigate the thousands of UFO reports and choose a course of action. The committee, headed by Howard Percy Robertson came to be known as The Robertson Panel. Robertson was a distinguished physicist, a CIA employee, and a director of the Defense Department Weapons Evaluation Group. He drew upon six friends and colleagues of scientific importance to fill the panel. Some of the more famous scientists on the board were Luis Alvarez, who won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1968; and Samuel A. Goudsmit, who was a head of one division of the Manhattan Project and jointly proposed the theory of the electronic spin. Other members were Frederick C. Durant, missile expert; Thornton Page, astrophysicist; Lloyd Berkner, physicist; and Allen Hynek, astronomer.

The Robertson Panel wasted no time in formulating their official report. They concluded that 90% of UFO sightings could be readily identified with meteorological, astronomical, or natural phenomenon, and that the remaining 10% could be explained with detailed study. They furthermore stated that such study would be a waste of time. Their final recommendation stated “That the national security agencies take immediate steps to strip the Unidentified Flying Objects of the special status they have been given and the aura of mystery they have unfortunately acquired.”

Based on their recommendations, a public relations committee was assembled to reduce public interest in UFOs. Believers subscribing to such notions were painted as foolish and irrational. This effort drew upon the resources of renowned scientists as well as celebrities and mass media. Even the influential Disney Corporation was involved in the debunking effort. From this point forward UFology has been seen in disrepute among scholarly circles, and UFOs have become a subject of the fringe communities.

A 22-year study by the Air Force of nearly 13,000 claimed sightings of UFOs ended with three no's:

No unidentified flying object evaluated by the Air Force was ever found to threaten national security.

No evidence submitted concerning UFOs represented evidence of technology or scientific principles beyond modern knowledge.

No evidence indicated that any of the sightings was of an extraterrestrial vehicle.

The Project Blue Book report, based on 12,618 UFO sightings reported between 1940 and 1969, remains the federal government's final word on the subject.

"Since the termination of Project Blue Book, nothing has occurred that would support a resumption of UFO investigations by the Air Force," according to a government fact sheet on the matter.

A 1997 paper issued by the CIA Centre for the Study of Intelligence titled CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs 1947-90 by Gerald K. Haines points out "over half of all UFO reports from the late 1950s through the 1960s were accounted for by manned (secret) reconnaissance flights over the US. This led the Air Force to make misleading and deceptive statements to the public in order to allay public fears and to protect an extraordinarily sensitive national security project".

Thus the Australian Government was secretly informed that UFO sightings were US spy craft, while the US population was kept in the dark, fuelling UFO conspiracy theories active even today.

The formerly secret study concludes: "Like the JFK assassination conspiracy theories, the UFO issue will probably not go away soon, no matter what the Agency does or says. The belief that we are not alone in the universe is too emotionally appealing and the distrust of government is too pervasive to make the issue amenable to traditional scientific studies of rational explanation and evidence."

Secrecy about UFOs and Extraterrestrials shows the true colours of an aspiring U.S. Global Empire

Although stories of strange objects in the sky go far back in time, the problem received little attention until World War II. At that time, military personnel from Allied and Axis countries reported unconventional objects in the sky, eventually known as foo fighters. In retrospect, this development is not so surprising. First, human aviation had become widespread for the first time. Above the clouds, thousands of pilots suddenly had the kind of visibility that no one ever had before. A second reason was the invention of radar, which extended the range of human vision by electronic means. Moreover, it seemed reasonable to assume that the odd sightings were related to the war itself, perhaps experimental technology.

One might have expected such sightings to vanish after the war's end in 1945. Instead, they increased. In Europe in 1946, then America in 1947, people saw and reported objects that could not be explained in any conventional sense. Wherever sightings occurred, military authorities dominated the investigations, and for perfectly understandable reasons. Unknown objects, frequently tracked on radar and observed visually, were flying within one's national borders and, in the case of the United States, over sensitive military installations. The war was over. What was going on here?

Initially, some Americans feared that the Soviet Union might be behind the "flying saucer" wave. This possibility was studied, then rejected. At a time when the world's fastest aircraft approached the speed of 600 mph, some of these objects exceeded - or appeared to exceed - 1,000 mph. What's more, they manoeuvred like no aircraft could, including right angle turns, stopping on a dime, and accelerating instantly. Could the Soviets really have built something like that? If so, why fly them over all over America and Western Europe? To experts, the idea seemed farfetched at best, and fifty years later, their conclusion stands.

If not Soviet, could the objects have been American? The possibility was studied and rejected for the same reasons. The speed of sound was not broken until October of 1947: was it really credible that, prior to this, the Americans had secretly discovered a hypersonic anti-gravity technology?

Let us pause here to assess the situation. What we can see is that, at some point during the mid-1940s, the intelligence apparatus of the United States, as well as of several other nations, had reason to believe that there were artefacts in the skies that did not originate from America, Russia, Germany, or any other country. Within the U.S., these objects violated some highly sensitive military air space, and did not appear to be natural phenomena. One may presume that the affected national security authorities made it an immediate obsession to determine the nature and purpose of these objects, and we may infer that the issue probably became a deep secret by 1946, or 1947 at the latest.

And speaking of commies from outer space, the famous Hill case has those undertones, an attempt to discredit local civil rights activists who were an interracial couple in the beginning days of that movement.

It is the first documented alien abduction and Stratham resident Kathleen Marden has intimate knowledge of all the details.

Marden has released an in-depth account of the abduction this month titled, "Captured!: The True Story of the World's First Documented Alien Abduction, The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience," written with the help of ufologist Stanton T. Friedman. The book reveals never before published, eye-witness accounts of the Hills' extraordinary encounter with the space vehicle, 11 alien figures and the hypnosis sessions that exposed their onboard experiences.

The Hills said they encountered a flying saucer on Sept. 19, 1961, while on a trip through New Hampshire's White Mountains.

Marden was 13 when her aunt called the next day to notify her family. Marden said she sat listening near the phone. "My mother told me what Betty said ... that they had a close observation of a UFO and that it had come down low enough so that they could see a double row of windows with a red light on each side," she said. "She told my mother that Barney went into a field and had actually seen the occupants of the craft and that when they were driving rapidly away from the area, the craft hovered, probably over the vehicle, and they heard a series of beeping, code-like beeping sounds, on the trunk of the vehicle."

The lives of her aunt and uncle, who were social and political activists, are also discussed in the book. The two were active in the civil rights movement, were two founding members of the Rockingham County Community Action Program, and were very involved in church, Marden said.

Question: There was a TV movie in the 1970s about an interracial couple abducted by a UFO. Can you tell me the title and if it's on video?


Answer: That's "The UFO Incident," a 1975 TV movie with Estelle Parsons and James Earl Jones as the couple and Lou Wagner as "The Leader." The movie isn't currently on video.

So if UFO's are a relic of the cold war why are we seeing an increase in their activity, especially in the former Soviet Union.


The Zond center for the study of anomalous phenomena claims that Ukraine has seen an increase in UFO activity over recent years. "While in the 1990s we had 10 to 15 reports a year, now their number has increased to 20-30. Most of them are accompanied by photos and videos. Witnesses understand that if they have seen something unusual in the sky they must tell researchers about it," said Artyom Bilyk, the center's learned secretary.

In scientists' view, the increase in reported sightings is explained by the proliferation of technology, as more and more people have access to cameras, video cameras, camera phones and so on. But even controlling for the increase in available technology, the UFO phenomenon is now observed more often than before.

UFOs attacking Ukraine. Video



UFO - A THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY?

Researchers are not joking when they say UFO appearances over Ukraine may threaten its national security. "Such flying machines may well be spying apparatus sent by other countries, or flying test prototypes from within and outside Ukraine," Bilyk said.

In addition, UFOs may pose a direct threat to witnesses' health and safety.

UFOs interacting with the environment sometimes produce distortions in biological life (altering plants and animals), increase radioactivity or electro-magnetic fields, and generate other fields of an unknown nature. Occasionally UFOs leave noticeable environment effects.

The Truth is Out There.

Even when it comes to revealing faked UFO sightings.

Fake UFO in Haiti Video Creator Uncovered

Remember the badass "UFO in Haiti" video that was all the rage last week? Big surprise, guys: It was a fake. The LA Times did some investigating and figured out just who was behind the convincing video. Yeah, I know, you wanted to believe. But it turns out the video was an exercise by a French computer animator who did work for the Michel Gondry stunner Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The UFO video was just an experiment, something he whipped up in one day and threw online. He did it as a test for a movie he's working on, but wasn't trying to make a viral hit or anything. Because somehow he didn't realize that an amazingly realistic and awesome UFO video would catch on on YouTube. Welcome to the internet, Frenchy. [LA Times]
For an interesting web page check out Best UFO Resources





SEE:

Roswell Aliens

CIA Conspiracies Are Real

ECHELON Spies on Greenpeace

UFO News

Suffield Base Canada's Area 51

Cryptozology Part 1

Trotskyist Cults


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